SanDisk Sansa m230 Blue (512 MB) Digital Media Player

I decided to buy first MP3 player after finding out how reasonably priced the non-Apple brand players are now. I saw that Circuity City had these on sale for $64.99, so I went to Best Buy (Because I had gift cards from Christmas) and had Best Buy Price Match Circuit City. This was nice because they match the price plus 10% of the difference. My purchase price ended up being around $59 before tax. Although there are some great deals on eBay for the same thing. I just thought I would share with you the price I paid so you can compare prices for it wherever you decide to purchase it.

Now onto the Pros and Cons of the unit...

Pros-

Small and compact

Voice Recorder built in.

Flash Memory instead of Hard Drive. Better for Running with.

512mb ideal for fast and simple transfers. I didn't want a huge amount of
memory just for a 2 hour workout.

Comes with the armband, headphones, USB cable AND one AAA battery to start you out with.

Acutally can play FM stations, unlike a lot of the other brands out there. Very nice for picking up the TV stations at the Gym.

Sandisk website has Firmware updates which are easy to install and update your player. Do this first when you buy one as it deletes all your stuff in the process.

Backlit, Equalizer, Shuffle, etc. are also nice little features.



Cons-

Small buttons sometimes hard for large fingers.

FM receiver a little weak indoors.

Wearing this unit with the supplied armband is a little bulky because of it's shape is like a lipstick container. Unlike some of the more flat models out there.

Menu takes a little getting used to, but has optional features that make it more simplified if needed. (ie. advanced menu & smart menu on/off)



All in all, I really can't think of many things that are terribly wrong with this MP3 player. It is doing well for me and I am planning on grabbing another one for my wife before the sale ends. I was stuck between this model and the e130 model with the expandable Sandisk SD slot, but I like this one for it's voice recording and compact size. I like Sandisk's customer support 800 number. They were really helpful on a couple of features that I was trying to figure out.

If I can offer one bit of advice about purchasing MP3 players, don't buy more memory than you absolutely need. The transfer times for some of these 30GB players is insane from the people I talk to. Figure out when and how long you will listen to it at a time and go from there. I like being able to quickly change all of the tracks. I actually use the MusicMatch Program for Windows XP, and it works very well with this unit.

Anyway, thanks for reading, and enjoy whatever unit you decide to buy.

Forget an iPod Shuffle, get a Sansa! The iPod shuffle is probably the closest competitor to the Sansa if you can even call it a competitor. (And yes, I do like iPods! No, I'm not an Apple hater! :-) ) The Sansa is cheaper, has a screen, and other features the Shuffle doesn't.

Pros:
- Excellent music and sound quality. This is the most important thing in a portable MP3 player, and it is indeed good.
- Good display screen with bright blue backlight. It's not really big, but the display is legible and easily seen in the dark with the bright blue backlight.
- FM tuner. Why listen to FM when you have music already? This may not sound like a big thing, but it's so useful! If you go to the gym with TV audio broadcast on FM, it's great to have a portable FM player to listen to the TV. The quality is very good, and it has 20 station presets.
- Voice recorder. Need to make a quick memo? The voice recorder records pretty good quality voice recordings.
- Accessories. The Sansa includes a clear case, armband, earbuds, and a USB cable.
- PlayForSure support. Most major online music stores (except for iTunes and Sony Connect) support PlaysForSure so you can buy/rent music from a number of stores and they all will play on the Sansa just fine. This way you can pick and choose music from multiple sites, and you're not tied to just one online store like iTunes.
- Audible support. You can listen to audio books from the popular Audible.com site.
- Good battery life. There's no rechargeable battery, but a AAA battery gives anywhere from 15-20 hours of life which is quite good for just a AAA battery.
- Easy to use. The player is very easy to use with simple menus. You should have no problem figuring it out!
- Good search features. Search your music by album, artist, genre, year, and more. This makes it very easy to find what you want.
- Stopwatch. This is a neat little add-on and it's handy for tracking how long you have been jogging or whatever!
- No drivers needed! One of my favorite features. There is no driver needed. All you need to do is plug it in and it will work. No complicated driver installation is required!

Cons:
- Just 512MB of space. Actually, this isn't really a con since this is clearly labeled as 512MB of space. This is enough for anywhere from 4-6 or 7 CDs which is more enough for several trips to the gym or jogging but not enough for a long trip. But then again, it takes forever to download GBs of music, so this really isn't too bad.
- Short USB cable. The set includes a really short 6 inch USB cable which is way too short for most computers unless you have a front mounted USB port. However, it uses a standard 5 Pin Mini B USB cable so you will probably want to buy a longer USB cable which is pretty inexpensive.

In fact, I enjoy this player so much, I got not one, not two, not three, but four of these for the entire family! Seriously! The SanDisk Sansa players are the best portable MP3 players out there for the money and the features and I highly recommend this player! Rated 5 of 5.

When looking for an MP3 player, I first considered the Ipod shuffle. I was turned off by the price, and the ability to only play files from the apple music store, or from CD transfer. The Sandisk sansa was about 1/3 the price. It will also play MP3 and WMA files. That means you can download your walmart purchased music, or use a subscription service of your choice. The Sansa will also allow you to listen to it’s built in FM receiver, or record your own voice memos. Also has an LCD display with backlight. The sansa comes with an AAA battery installed. This is the only downside to this player; the battery life is kind of short. I only get about 7 hours or so of continuous play, but battery changes are super easy, and AAA are cheap. Overall, less than 1/3 the price of an Ipod. More input choices, Fm, Voice recorder all not available on Ipod. Go Sandisk. I rated it Good instead of excellent only because of battery life. Different brands of battery may give different results. I am happy with my SanDisk Sansa M230.

The first one of these I had I used for a few years but it then just died. Still, it was the least expensive mp3 player that was compatible with audible.com software so I got another. They work fine other than two problems I experienced with both units. First, the information that comes with them doesn't bother to mention that the player must occasionally be reformatted. Suddenly it's stuck and it just won't work. Fortunately Sandisk provides help online for this problem and it's easy to fix. The other issue, and I experienced this, too, with both units, is that each time you turn it on, it skips ahead a little more than a minute. So every time I turn it on I have to back up to where I left off previously. Not a big deal; I've enjoyed hundreds of hours of good books with it.

I bought the SanDisk Sansa m230 (512 MB) MP3 Player because I was looking for something that would play audio books checked out and downloaded via the internet from my local library. They use Overdrive and I hadn't been able to find a low priced player that was compatible. I didn't want to spend more than $30.00 - this was cheaper and works great.
Although, the player doesn't bookmark (most players don't unless you go higher priced or use Audible) this little player remembers where I left off when I shut it off so I'm happy with it.
I could wish it had a larger memory or was upgradeable with memory cards, but for that I'd have to spend more money. And how many audio books do you actually need at one time? So, for what I needed it for it's almost perfect.